tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post9214426398437437164..comments2015-03-31T08:42:38.610-07:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Robert Herrick: To GrovesZephirinenoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-28315508629072128972013-04-22T19:17:17.305-07:002013-04-22T19:17:17.305-07:00Thanks Marie for directing me here, and thank you ...Thanks Marie for directing me here, and thank you too Tom, what a lovely surprise! <br />So interesting to learn about Herrick, that he trained as a goldsmith, which was also my vocation for years. Given the choice, I&#39;d much rather work with paperbark than gold.<br />Beautiful poem about your first night at Waitpinga, Marie...we were so lucky to experience such stillness.vizma bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01880899426184937253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-26000595678474765092013-04-22T00:11:17.146-07:002013-04-22T00:11:17.146-07:00On the sand of Waitpinga
Turkey wings and bubbles
...On the sand of Waitpinga<br />Turkey wings and bubbles<br />in glasses<br />Watch up<br />the moon in trail of<br />stars unscattered,<br />just a trail above you<br />North to South<br />trees are barking paper,<br />The Windy Place has lost its voice Marie Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07787850063283960703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20969656275168903792013-04-21T21:07:39.697-07:002013-04-21T21:07:39.697-07:00It would be pleasant to think it&#39;s all been ca...It would be pleasant to think it&#39;s all been carv&#39;d into the Paperbark Book of Days, the wit and the modesty and the magic, all the elements of Herrick&#39;s great gift -- and for that matter even a smidgeon of the longevity -- though that last quality&#39;s of course down to us to protect, and if we (people who at least still pretend to care about poetry) lose the good sense to appreciate fine things (has it already been lost?), those things will lose their longevity the instant the last remembrer loses her or his memory of them. Until then, exquisite&#39;s the word certainly, for the thing itself, when it&#39;s as good as this -- and grateful, for us.<br /><br />The arts and skills required to make such delicate beautiful things were gained once by discipline and hard work and love. Herrick was apprenticed as a goldsmith and thus trained in the arts of the bright bit of filigree and the hard-won finishing touch, studied his classics by candle light for the sheer fascination to be found in elegant and exacting figuration, and took up poetry under the generous and congenial scholarly mentorship of a grand tavern master named Ben Jonson. That was in the geological epoch before Flarf, Metapoetics and the Universal Conquest of Instant Smartphone Post-Avant Administered Know-Nothingism.<br /><br />Ah how lovely to think of flying away homeward to the paperbark groves and the beaches of <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Waitpinga.jpg" rel="nofollow">Waitpinga, home of the winds</a>...TChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-38027661840452692712013-04-21T16:33:15.084-07:002013-04-21T16:33:15.084-07:00And suddenly she was sitting in an airplane back t...And suddenly she was sitting in an airplane back to Waitpinga. Couldn&#39;t wait to see the paper barks again.<br />Thank you so much, Tom! I am hoping Vizma will drop in to see this post! She will be very happy to be an inspiration on your blog. Engraving a poem on a tree, that&#39;s like writing your words on hundreds of compacted sheets of papers. It&#39;s like multiplying your words. Exponential writing. But then the years strip them down one by one. It&#39;s a trade-off...<br /><br />Marie Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07787850063283960703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-72325105475752129212013-04-21T12:01:13.101-07:002013-04-21T12:01:13.101-07:00Give way, give way to me, who come
schorch&#39;t w...Give way, give way to me, who come<br />schorch&#39;t with the selfe-same martyrdome.<br /><br />Me, me, forsaken, here admit<br />among your mirtles to be writ.<br /><br />Who&#39;d have the wit and the modesty to make such effective use of self assertion now? That light irony at work!Wooden Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-10113318336895591352013-04-21T10:48:50.156-07:002013-04-21T10:48:50.156-07:00Sometimes I wonder who will be remembered from our...Sometimes I wonder who will be remembered from our time. I assume a disconnect between fame and longevity . . . <br /><br />The images of bark are magical. Nin Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12643167108589844026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-2630536050024654142013-04-21T09:21:44.957-07:002013-04-21T09:21:44.957-07:00Exquisite.
Exquisite.<br />vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)http://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-4980738786257040982013-04-21T08:43:05.060-07:002013-04-21T08:43:05.060-07:00Steve, yes, that&#39;s so touching, isn&#39;t it. ...Steve, yes, that&#39;s so touching, isn&#39;t it. Especially when one remembers Herrick wasn&#39;t published at all, until he did it himself, late on, and then at the absolutely wrong moment, just as everything was falling apart.<br /><br />So carving a poem into a tree would almost make sense, a kind of early &quot;cottage&quot; mimeograph-like form of production.<br /><br />The seemingly-unsorted multitude of poems in Hesperides is famously without rhyme or reason in its sequencing, as though &quot;ordered&quot; by the pack-of-cards-flung-about-at-random method.<br /><br />But a closer look, over the years, reveals small interesting propinquities.<br /><br />&quot;To Groves&quot;, for example, is preceded by this epigram:<br /><br />Fame makes us forward<br /><br />To Print our Poems, the propulsive cause<br />Is Fame, (the breath of popular applause.)<br /><br />One has to wonder when that was writ (again, very few of the poems yield easily if at all to attempts at dating).<br /><br />Early on, in London, most likely -- but the thought of the later isolation in &quot;rocky Devon&quot; also enters the mind.<br /><br />&quot;been for walk&quot;<br />&quot;seen lots of things&quot;<br /><br />(Paperbark trees share a native environment with eucalypti.)TChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-73829827518507713862013-04-21T07:46:08.285-07:002013-04-21T07:46:08.285-07:00Tom,
Herrick&#39;s verses on still alive here, ne...Tom,<br /><br />Herrick&#39;s verses on still alive here, next to paperbark trees --quite fitting &quot;That my poore name may have the glory/ To live remembred in your story.&quot;<br /><br />4.21<br /><br />blue whiteness of sky above still black<br />ridge, bird slanting across lower right<br />in foreground, wave sounding in channel<br /><br /> wrote he had “been for walk,”<br /> “seen lots of things”<br /><br /> come to the surface as such<br /> actual, i.e., present<br /><br />cloudless blue sky reflected in channel,<br />shadowed green canyon of ridge above it<br /><br /><br /><br />STEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-8232730923332197072013-04-21T07:26:21.298-07:002013-04-21T07:26:21.298-07:00The mingling-together of details from Roman burial...The mingling-together of details from Roman burial custom with Christian references represents a signature Herrick trick. In this form of serious play the history of all men and all women, of all lovers, is drawn as a ceremonial business, with poetic protocols as old as the civilized forest.<br /><br />Herrick&#39;s figure of carving names into trees lends to reflection upon the physical-depth aspect of poetry, the memory of carving in it, its history as a form fixed by print; an inscription, a sinking-into-something.<br /><br />....pity these have not<br />Trac&#39;d upon vellum or wild Indian leaf<br />The shadows of melodious utterance...<br /><br />This post carries on from <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/vicente-huidobro-poetry-is-celestial.html" rel="nofollow">Vicente Huidobro: Poetry Is a Celestial Transgression</a><br /><br />NB. Immediate inspiration (paper bark) came from <a href="http://mariesmailbox.blogspot.com/2013/04/paperbark-boekie-from-vizma-bruns.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>.<br /><br />Also by Herrick:<br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/robert-herrick-life-is-bodies-light.html" rel="nofollow">Robert Herrick: Life is the Bodies Light</a><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/robert-herrick-memorials-of-obscure.html" rel="nofollow">Robert Herrick: Memorials of the Obscure</a><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/robert-herrick-silks.html" rel="nofollow">Robert Herrick: Silks</a><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/robert-herrick-comming-of-good-luck.html" rel="nofollow">Robert Herrick: The comming of good luck</a>TChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com